How to rate a student: where to begin

The 30-second version

You're producing three labels for a student: one tier (1–8) and up to two service groups.

• The tier comes from rating five domains (areas of need), each scored 0–3, then combined.
• The service groups come from a separate look at how much provider time the student gets.

That's the whole shape. The rest is doing it carefully.

What you're working with

Two pieces of vocabulary, briefly (full intros linked):

• A domain is one of five areas of support — Curriculum, Behavior, Communication, Independent Functioning, Personal Care/Health. You score each 0–3. What is a domain
• A factor is one of four questions you ask inside each domain — how much (A), who delivers (B), what ratio (C), what equipment (D). The domain takes its highest factor. What is a factor

The anchor rule

One rule sits over everything: you rate what the IEP documents and requires — not what the student seems like, not what would be best practice. The rubric's levels are written in terms of what the IEP requires, so the document is what you read against. It can feel backwards to rate the paperwork rather than the child, but that's the design: the IEP is meant to be the record of what the student needs for FAPE, and the rubric reads from it.

The order of operations

It's not a clean 1-2-3 — there's triage, an override that can short-circuit the tier, and two separate passes over the IEP. Here's a believable order to actually work in.

1. Start from the IEP, not the rubric. Read the student's IEP and gather the evidence first — services, minutes, required credentials, ratios, equipment, goals. You're rating what's documented, so the document comes first.
2. Check for an override. Three situations set the tier regardless of scores: speech-only (Tier 1), ARD day placement (Tier 7), ARD residential (Tier 8). Knowing up front which regime you're in saves confusion later. But an override doesn't excuse you from rating — you still score every factor, because the data feeds scheduling and staffing. How scores become a tier
3. Go domain by domain — and triage. For each of the five domains, ask first: is there any direct service here at all? Most students are empty in several domains. Concentrate your effort on the one to three domains where there's real specialized instruction; don't grind all five equally.
4. In each live domain, rate the four factors. Match the documented reality to the level whose language fits — you're matching IEP language to rubric language, not judging the student. The five domain pages
5. Take the highest factor — that's the domain score. Highest factor wins, per domain. Five domain scores fall out.
6. Derive the tier. Sum the five domain scores for the ladder (Tiers 1–5), recognize the top patterns (four-Significant-plus-one = Tier 6; five-Significant = Tier 7), or apply the override from step 2. How scores become a tier
7. Service groups — a separate pass over the IEP. Different question, different evidence: sum related-services minutes across all services for a six-week period (Groups 1–3), and check dedicated 1:1 time as a percentage of the day (Groups 4–5). This is a distinct read, looking for time and staffing, not intensity. Service groups
8. You're done. One tier, plus up to two service groups (at most one of 1–3, at most one of 4–5).

Need a specific number?

Every threshold — minute markers, tier bands, service-group bands — is collected on one lookup page. The numbers reference

The map of everything here

If you're…	Read
brand new to the rubric	what is a domain, what is a factor
about to rate, building intuition	the four factor pieces (A–D)
mid-rating, student in front of you	the five domain pieces
confused why a tier came out the way it did	tiers & output layer
stuck on minutes or 1:1	service groups
unsure which domain a support belongs in	what is a domain
just need to check a number	reference: all the numbers